Flu jab effective?

[lazybloke]

This year they removed carers and co-habitants of immune suppressed patients so likely that it’ll be the same next year.

Yes, as a cohabitant I was a bit surprised that I didn't appear in the covid jab eligibility.
However, I was for the flu jab (see last bullet point below).

When I booked mine, it offered a covid jab at the same time! That was back in early Oct. Not sure if it still offers both, worth a try maybe?

NB, the seasonal flu jab scheme is about to close. I think you've only for 4 days to book.

 

[vickster]

I took the free flu jab this year but didn't have COVID one (eligible due to AF diagnosis).
In the past, I've paid for the flu jab and claimed from employer or just paid the £10-15 or whatever

 

[Drago]

I get mine free, which is my favourite price.

 

[Time Waster]

Got my flu jab available due to asthma. Two or three weeks later I stopped at a supermarket and on the way in saw the covid vaccination van. I was on my way to visit family but while my partner went into the supermarket I went over to chat to the people at the van. Turned out asthma made me on the covid vaccination list. She asked if I wanted it and I ssaid yes. Took a minute after she had found out I was eligible and I was back in the supermarket shopping.

Two weeks later my son got a cold that uncharacteristicly dropped him like a tonne of lead. he went to be one night and slept the next day until about 6pm. The day later he slept most of it and then slept or lay on the couch the rest of the day. Then he went back to school as he was not feeling ill apart from a sore throat. his temperature was high thoug and the day before high enough to leave him hallucinating.

Cue a day or so later my partner got something. Ended up sleeping most of two days, aching joints. and took a week to come round. What about me? Absolutely nothing at all. Not in the slightest. It is a week since the last symptom of anyone in the house and I still have nothing.

Is this down to the vaccines? No idea but I can tell you that out of the three of us my partner mostly never got a cold even when our son came home with one. He surprisingly hardly got one for a kid at school. Me? I get abkut 4 or 5 cold just in thee autumn period of the year alone. I got them at the slightlest contact. Since mu first flu vaccine last year I have not even had two colds or other lurgy. I have had infections that have left me out cold with my face planted hard on the coffee shop table, perforated eardrum, aching joints, stiff and other symptoms, but I am not sure I have ever had flu since I have always managed to get around at least the house with even the worst bug. So all I can say for sure that since taking them I have had less bugs and have been healthier in flu and cold season.

So I take them when offered. It feels like they work for me and that is enough to stick with the plan.

 

[Buck]

Having the vaccines may have helped you here. They do not guarantee that you wont pick up a flu or covid but will fight any virus to minimise any symptoms you experience.

 

[Marchrider]

COVID jabs available, Boots are offering it for £100: https://www.boots.com/online/pharmacy-services/covid-19-vaccination-service

£100 or Covid - I will get over Covid

£100 - is that like ten ten pound notes ? Imagine that, a fist full of dollars

 

[BrumJim]

As someone in the upper echelons of healthiness, certainly for a man in his 50s, it amuses me that I get the COVID jab, but my wife who has multiple health problems including post-COVID fatigue, doesn't.

Yes, I have the flu jab, but much like my job at work, I'm not going to measure success on a single-person narative.

 

[Time Waster]

How much is your time worth stuck at home with COVID or flu that could have been prevented or minimised by a vaccine costing £100?

My partner has not long got over something nasty that took 2 days out of her life and left her with low performance levels for many days afterwards. Also, she was sick and could not eat what she normally eats without feeling or being sick. I would say all in about 2 weeks of symptoms, afteraffects and recovery. Even if she was minimum wage that is weeks of 38 hours a week at minimum wage (actually a lot more than min wage in reality). That is about £869 cost. You no doubt could also put a value on how much youd pay to avoid feeling really, really ill, like she did, beyond just work salary costs. Let us just say that the return on the £100 investment is 9 fold or greater.

So you keep your £100 in your hand I will keep the £900 plus in benefits the vaccine has given me. Everyone has the choice to make on this but it is widely proven that the vaccine is cost effective by some margin based on scientific and economic research. Vaccination is widely held as the most successful medical technology when it comes to lives saved. That is ignored by those who do not like the idea of vaccines but it is still what the evidence is showing. Each to their choice.

 

[Time Waster]

Should also say that I get them under the NHS. My work also pays for the flu jabs as well. I chose not to use their offer as I was NHS vaccination. Work buys a certain number of jabs based on historical need within the company.

Not everyone gets it and a lot also get it through NHS so do not take up the limited company offering. IT still lasts the whole of autumn and into winter before the scheme runs out and closes. Plenty take it up but not universal.

 

[Psamathe]

How much is your time worth stuck at home with COVID or flu that could have been prevented or minimised by a vaccine costing £100?

Also (and main consideration for myself) is the risks of Long-Covid. I regard getting sick for a week or two without hospitalisation, self-isolating then full recovery is to be avoided but most significant is full recovery in short timescales.

But suffering extreme fatigue, etc., unable to do many of the things one normally enjoys and that persisting for many many months with no treatment (and by the sounds of it not a lot of NHS help) - horrendous. You don't know when (or if) you'll properly recover but probably you'll be suffering for a long time into the future.

Ian

 

[Time Waster]

A woman near where we used to live got ill in october or november just before COVID was a thing we all heard about with a really bad flu type condition that saw her in hospital getting help to breathe. Shortly afterwards she started to get other symptoms and indeed ended up in hospital with loads of varied symptoms including kidney issues. Rather quite ill indeed and spent pretty much most of 2020 unable to work or to only be able to work a few hours a day before getting tired and sleeping it off at home.

Now we know this, for people who were diagnosed with covid in 2020 and later, as long Covid. What I am saying is from what she said and what she believes (and in 2020 and 2021 what the doctors diagnosed in her despite denying that she got covid in 2019 not 2020) was long covid. She lost a lot of those two years due to being housebound, in hospital and very unwell. This sounds conspiracy theorist but she had what was covid symptoms and the beginnings of long covid in the year before COVID went viral (sorry for the pun). No way to test for it back then so no evidence but put those same symptons into 2020 and later it would get a clear covid and then long covid diagnosis.

I say this because she was the most affected person I know (other than the ones who died of COVID) and that alone gives me a good reason to get all the flu and covid vaccinations they offer. I would even consider £100 for each a high in value investment in my improved chances of avoiding flu and COVID. For me it is about decreasing my health risks for the cost of £100 or £200 for COVID and flu if the covid was offered for £100 too which it is not. £100 for improved chances of minimising or preventing the effects of flu is a good deal.

Put it this way, if you could get out of bed to grab those two £50 notes blowing away in front of you then you don't have flu. If you could not grab them but throw away another two £50 notes to be able to get up out of bed and no longer feel so ill I think you would. No idea what I mean by saying this but it made sense when typing so will leave it in.

 

[presta]

I took the free flu jab this year but didn't have COVID one (eligible due to AF diagnosis).

I get a free flu vaccine now, due to AF, but before covid I was told that AF isn't a qualifying condition.

 

[vickster]

I get a free flu vaccine now, due to AF, but before covid I was told that AF isn't a qualifying condition.

Maybe it depends on your GP? I've had multiple Covid invites if that's what you mean

 

[presta]

Maybe it depends on your GP? I've had multiple Covid invites if that's what you mean

Flu vaccine rules changed at the time covid appeared. Prior to covid, the pharmacist told me that AF isn't a qualifying condition for flu vaccine, but as I've never seen a copy of the rules as they were previously I don't know whether I was being fobbed off or not.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

What I am saying is from what she said and what she believes (and in 2020 and 2021 what the doctors diagnosed in her despite denying that she got covid in 2019 not 2020) was long covid.

You may believe that, but it's not true.

Covid doubling time was three days or so without social distancing. Any infections that early would have resulted in wider societal spread correspondingly earlier too; patient zero on 1st Nov implies a million infections by year end.

My own mother suffered what was probably a severe post viral response from an infection in August 2019, and has never fully recovered. There's no reason to ascribe that to Covid for it to be real.